During the boom years, many young and mid-career workers looked set to inherit the Earth. The best and brightest earned fat signing bonuses, big salaries and fancy perks. With their futures seemingly secure, they took on big debts as they splurged on expensive houses, cars and vacations. Now, many of them feel like a lost generation, worried that their peak earning years are behind them even as their expenses jump.

I would very much appreciate knowing where the writers got these stats: By September 2002, only 85% had jobs. For women 20 to 44, the employedshare fell from a peak of 73.5% in early 2000 to 70.6% in September 2002.Although women aged 45 to 54 fared slightly better -- 73.5% of them remained employed, a smalldrop from 73.9% -- their male counterparts were hard hit: 84.8% of them had jobs, down from85.9% a year earlier. Surprisingly, older workers are the only ones who have done well. The share ofmen 55 to 64 with jobs rose from 65.9% to 67.2% over the past year, and the share of women 55to 64 with jobs grew from 51.7% to 54.4%.This article and these statistics are 180° from my experience and from the reality for any "older" job hunter I know. Even the WSJ Career Journal does not support these findings.